A/N: So it has literally been almost nine years since I updated this story. I still get e-mails about people favoriting it and adding it to their lists so I decided to at least tie up loose ends with a final chapter so people don't feel robbed. I'd like to point out that I know I have mistakes in prior chapters, but I also wrote said chapters ALMOST NINE years ago. At some point, I may go through and attempt to fix any typos, etc. Thank you to everyone has been a part of this. I just really wanted to give this to anyone who had been waiting and waiting and waiting.
Three weeks later…
"Hey, hey, Boy Genius – the hell do you think you're doing?"
It was a Monday and as he had been for the last week and a half that he'd been at Derek Morgan's apartment, Spencer Reid was attempting to abandon the futon he'd been spending ninety percent of his time on. Of course this task seemed highly unachievable with his newly entitled babysitter watching his every move.
As if recovery wasn't terribly awful enough, Morgan had Reid watching baseball with him on the television in the living room for exactly fifteen hours and forty-three minutes too long. Even though Garcia had been gracious enough to bring some books by earlier in the week (and gift baskets galore), the pile had been deemed read a couple of days ago.
"I do believe I reserve the right to use the bathroom still, yes? Because that's my master plan, Boss."
Morgan smirked slightly and crossed the living room to hold out an arm. The gesture was something that had begun happening back in the hospital and Reid simply had to give up and accept the fact that people were going to want to help him. The only way he could live through all of the second hand pity was to imagine himself in the others' shoes. Had it been Morgan or J.J. that had put him through just… everything he'd put them through, he knew his attitude would likely mirror theirs.
With the much larger man's help, Reid found himself limping to the washroom and keeping a smirk on his face as he stepped inside and closed the door so that he couldn't be followed in. No, Derek wouldn't actually invade his personal space like that, but considering Spencer had been doing a whole lot of nothing lately, it was the small taunting gestures that kept him amused.
But when he turned and found his reflection in the mirror, the smirk faltered. Three weeks and he still had evidence on his face of the events that went down with Robert Priest.
Robert Priest, the man he had secretly been researching religiously since he was able to use a laptop again. He wanted to find everything on him. Feel as though he was invading the personal space that the other man had done to him. Alas, he didn't find much more than the bureau (a collection of files in which Garcia may have 'accidentally' attached to his private e-mail). At the end of the day, he would always know more about the man because he was the one who spent all of the time with him. And what was even worse than that was the fact that he didn't know all too much about him at all.
He was a low key person who had lived a low key life. Obsessing over why now and for what good goddamn reason was getting him nowhere. Reid really did try not to think about it. But his reflection was a living reminder that there was still a man out there who wanted him dead. Who should have killed him. The fact that he was alive at all was a miracle no one could account for.
There was also the ugly truth that Robert Priest never had cared about which agent he would've caught in the first place which brought a different kind of anxiety to his chest. Not having Priest in custody meant that it wasn't really over yet. He could come and slaughter Morgan and Reid at any given moment, even with the private detail that had been scouting the apartment ever since he first stepped foot into it.
Three knocks panged against the door.
"You alright in there, Kid?" came a concerned Morgan. Reid met his reflection and shook his head with a roll of his eyes.
His right hand turned at the tap on the faucet so that he could let cold water smother his hands. "Yeah! Just one minute," he called out, splashing some of the water on his face. He winced at a particularly persistent bruise on his cheek bone that hadn't quite healed yet. It was time to put on his happy façade again. His 'okay' façade.
Reid's hand turned the knob to the bathroom door and opened it to be met with his colleague's face of concern. "You gonna stalk me every time I feel the need to urinate or—?"
"You didn't flush. So you're either disgustingly unsanitary – which you couldn't even pretend to be – or you didn't use the bathroom at all."
"Oh Sherlock," Reid responded nonchalantly. "I'm never gonna get anything past you, am I?" He patted his bony hand on the man's shoulder and limped past him, even if Morgan was quick to swivel round and help him back into the living room.
Spencer Reid didn't want to ask for help, but he wouldn't say he minded it entirely.
He attempted to situate himself on the futon while Morgan blatantly profiled him. Instead of letting the other agent have a go at him, Reid interrupted his thought process.
"You're doing that look you do, you know. When you really want to talk to me about something, but you're too worried about my own emotional status to properly bring it up. So I'll just get to the elephant in the room that you've been pondering for days.
"Don't tell me I'm wrong either because just as much as you've been watching me, I've been watching you. You want to know about the Dilaudid. You've had an infatuation with trying to figure out how the UnSub would know to have my drug of choice on him if he was going after us at random. You want to know because if it came from him, that makes it even more personal. And confusing. So I'll shed some light on the situation.
"I've had the bottle in my bathroom since the day I decided to get clean. It felt a lot better walking away from it knowing that I had a choice and I made the right one. It was a massive sign of symbolism for me at first. Then it was just a thing that was there. I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it had it not been for Priest. But alas, he used it against me. I've got enough personal files in my apartment for him to learn anything he would've needed to. Especially since I prefer hard copies of everything and all.
But to answer the even more pressing matter on your mind, no. I don't have any intentions of using again. I'm already staying away from the narcotics the doctors prescribed because there's no need to put myself there. Getting high won't solve anything. And it sure as shit won't catch him."
Morgan craned his head to the side and crossed his arms at he studied the younger agent. Honestly, Reid expected more of some kind of fight from him, but his response held no means for such a thing.
"We're going to find him," he stated simply.
"I know," Reid replied.
Six weeks later…
"You are not the easiest criminal to track down," came the monotone voice that belonged to Aaron Hotchner as he allowed a thick file fall upon the desk of the interrogation room he occupied. Besides an officer, the two were alone. Hotch and Robert Priest, at last toe-to-toe.
"You did a good job at fleeing the mess you left behind, but we both know you didn't actually think you'd get away with all of this forever. You're just not organized enough."
Priest neglected to give the Chief any eye contact for a response, just shrugged his shoulders as he stared at his shackled wrists.
"Your profile of me is obscure and inaccurate. Otherwise you would have found me before I ever got my hands on your precious agent. Has he resigned yet? Been committed to a psych hospital? Spending a little time in the Nevada sun with a few orderlies watching over him? Or perhaps…"
The agent watched as his suspect's eyes averted to the mirror on the wall opposite him. "Perhaps he's standing right on the other side of that mirror. Yep, I think I'm going to have to go with that deduction. He wouldn't miss this for the world."
Hotchner looked up at the one-way, biting at the insides of his cheeks before letting out a single breath. Before he could respond, the door to the interrogation room opened and a much healthier Reid with only a ghost of a limp strode in, emotionless as ever.
"Can I have my moment now?" he asked. Normally this was the kind of behavior that got Reid in trouble, but Hotch had promised him this one thing. The one last face to face. A moment alone so that he could properly speak his mind with all of the thoughts he had been gathering over the course of two and a half months.
Instead of a verbal response, Hotch nodded and walked towards the door so that he could leave them alone. He may not have always gone by the books, but the man bent over backwards for every damn person on his team and this case was no different.
Priest smirked, coolly, the corners of his mouth seemingly growing more devious by the moment.
"You clean up well," he proposed.
"I know," Reid replied, taking a seat across the table from his captor and lightly crossing his arms over his chest.
"You're doing a hell of a good job at pretending you're okay."
This time a smug smile began to rise on Reid's lips.
"Pretending? Who says that I'm pretending? I think you forgot who you're talking to. I chose to deal with people like you as a career. You think a few bad incidents are going to ruin me? I've got thicker skin than that, Priest."
The other man's neck craned ever so slightly to the left, but he didn't let his expression falter.
"I imagine you've been practicing that speech in the mirror for months."
Reid simply sat more lax in his chair and shrugged as if nothing fazed him. Because the truth was, it wasn't fazing him like Priest wanted it to.
"You think that you're one of the 'Greats'? Look at you. Living on the road. Car to car, motel to motel. And do you want to know what else? You're wrong. Because the profile we delivered – once we passed all of your dummy holes – it was so accurate that we found you in under forty hours."
"Well, I'd love to hear what your profile of me ended up being then."
Then Reid let out a low chuckle.
"I'm sure you do. I'm sure you want to hear an abundance of things – especially from me. But I only have one thing to say to you and I really hope your memory is even a fraction of as good as mine because this one needs to stick. You didn't ruin me. You didn't break apart my team. You didn't change the way I'm going to see life. In fact, you're nobody. You tried so hard – and I should applaud you on just how hard – to make a name for yourself. In the end, you just wanted to be remembered because you know that you've always been a nobody. Meanwhile, I dedicate my life to catching people a hell of a lot more terrifying than you and there's nothing like the reward of saving just one person. Here's the moral of my story: you may have hit me, held me against my will and tried to abolish my self-esteem. That's something you have in common with the other serial killers you'll be spending the rest of your life with.
"Me on the other hand? I'm going to be just fine."
And as Spencer Reid read the expression of the man sat across from him, in that moment at least, he really did believe his own words.
